A Melanie Dickerson Collection

by Melanie Dickerson

  That was one story he was anxious to ask Rapunzel about. She no doubt had a hand in that brave act.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see Frau Adelheit standing just behind him.

  “Sir Gerek, I am sorry to interrupt your meal, but Rapunzel is missing. None of us have seen her since she went to change her clothing, and that was before the preparation of the meal.”

  Gerek stood and stepped over the bench where he was sitting at the raised dais with the family. “Perhaps she went for a walk. She likes to sit under the tree in the south meadow.”

  “No, I sent someone there to look for her. I am afraid something has happened to her.” Her eyes were round, and she was clutching her hands.

  It seemed strange that Frau Adelheit was so anxious about a maidservant. But Rapunzel was special—strong, kind, and reliable.

  “What makes you think something has happened to her?”

  She hesitated. She knew something that she didn’t want to tell him. “I have reason to think that her mother—Gothel—may be planning to do something terrible to her.”

  Gerek felt the blood start to pump through his veins, as if he was preparing for battle. “I saw her mother. She was in the castle yard by the kitchen.”

  Frau Adelheit’s lips turned white. “Oh no. She must have taken her. You must go after her.”

  “Surely her mother wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “She would. I believe she would! Please, you must find her and bring her back. She will give Rapunzel a sleeping potion. I believe she would do anything to get her away from Hagenheim.”

  “I shall find her.”

  Without pausing to tell anyone where he was going, Gerek hurried out to the stables, saddled his horse, and started out to the small house where Rapunzel and her mother had lived.

  He arrived at the house in the woods without seeing them. He dismounted and knocked on the front door, which creaked open at the first knock.

  “Rapunzel? Are you here?” He stepped inside. There were no live coals in the fire pit, and their belongings had been removed. He walked around the entire one-room house, which took only a few moments. He stepped out the back door, but there were no animals. She had undoubtedly taken the donkey, the ox, and the cart with her—and she must have stopped by the castle to get Rapunzel as well.

  Where had they gone? What had she done to Rapunzel? How would he ever find them?

  His heart sank a little more with each question. But he had no time for despair. He had to make haste and find her, find their trail.

  As he mounted his horse and rode back toward Hagenheim, he urged Donner into a gallop. He had to see if he could pick up some kind of trail from the location where her mother must have taken her.

  He arrived several minutes later at the castle. He walked behind the kitchen, where he could see the maidservants’ sleeping quarters—a small wooden building several feet from the kitchen. Between the two buildings he noticed the dirt path was slightly churned up. Was this where Rapunzel had encountered her mother?

  He looked carefully at the new spring grass. The ground was soft from recent rain. He followed the two lines her feet had made until they ended beside some cart tracks.

  During the confusion just after the battle, Gothel must have brought her donkey and cart into the castle yard and waited for Rapunzel to come out. She intercepted her just outside the servants’ sleeping quarters, and must have either knocked Rapunzel unconscious or given her some kind of potion to make her lose her strength.

  Rapunzel didn’t deserve to be mistreated. Inexplicably, the memory of his mother floated in front of his eyes. His mother had not deserved to be abused and thrown down the stairs just because she had wanted her son home for the Christmas holy day. And Rapunzel didn’t deserve to be taken against her will by an insane woman bent on only-God-knew-what.

  “God,” he whispered into the air, “make me her champion. Give me the strength and ability to find her. Show me where to look, where to go, how to find her.”

  He heard someone approaching and turned to see Frau Adelheit. “You didn’t find her?”

  “I went to her house, but her mother has taken everything and left. I think she brought her donkey and cart here and took her. I’ll follow this trail as far as I can and hopefully overtake them, but they have at least a two-hour head start.”

  “Should you take someone with you?”

  “No time.” He mounted his horse. “Tell some of the men to follow me.” Although he didn’t truly think she would be able to convince Duke Wilhelm’s men to go after a maidservant.

  He followed the cart wheel tracks in the dirt, but they did not stay on the road. He dismounted, frantically searching the ground for any sign of them.

  Several of Duke Wilhelm’s guards stopped on the road where he had left Donner.

  “I need a tracker over here,” Gerek yelled.

  He recognized the first two men who reached him. “I lost the trail here. I’m tracking two women, a cart, a donkey, and possibly an ox. One woman is probably on the cart.”

  The men went to work, touching the ground, sniffing bits of leaves and dirt. One called the other over and they consulted, then called out, “We found the trail.”

  Gerek could just make out the cart wheel tracks in the grass. It looked as though they were following the road, but out of sight of it, in the edge of the trees. Gerek and the other men remounted their horses and followed the two trackers. They kept going for an hour or more before they lost the trail again. This time even the best trackers could not pick up any signs.

  “Let’s split up,” Gerek said. “Two men in every direction.”

  Gerek took the best tracker with him, but eventually it was clear that they had completely lost the trail. The tracker held out little hope of finding it again. But they pressed on, hoping and praying to miraculously intercept their trail again or to even find the two women themselves.

  They stopped midafternoon to rest their horses.

  “Shouldn’t we turn back?” the tracker asked. “We’ve been searching for hours and haven’t found them.”

  “Of course we shouldn’t turn back! Turn back? For what?” Gerek took a slow, deep breath and fought to rid the anger from his tone. “Let us keep looking. We could find them at any moment.” But it was less and less likely as time wore on, and he knew it.

  They finally found a road and a man with an ox and cart, carrying a load of thatch. Gerek asked the man if he had seen two women and a donkey cart.

  “No, I haven’t seen anyone like that, no women at all.”

  Gerek was too disappointed to say another word. He could no longer convince his tracker to stay, so the man headed back to Hagenheim.

  Gerek continued searching alone. He soon came to a small village and asked several people if they had seen two women with a donkey and a cart traveling that day. No one had seen them.

  He went back the way he had come and tried to think at which point it was most likely that they had gone off a different way.

  It was impossible. There was no way to know which direction Gothel had taken her. Along the way were fields and roads and woods, but where they had gone was a complete mystery.

  He couldn’t let despair overtake him. He had bought some food at the village and he stopped now to eat it, water his horse, and rest.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about her fighting off her attacker at the castle. Even though she had wanted to make it clear that Balthasar had attacked her, had fallen on her knife, she didn’t collapse in hysterical crying or screaming at realizing the man was dead, as he might have expected a young woman to do. She had no one in her life except a mother who had threatened to do terrible things to her, but she was not overcome by her circumstances, not grasping and desperate to marry the first man she could cling to.

  And yet . . . she was thoroughly feminine and beautiful and sweet.

  He wouldn’t even let himself think he might be in love with her. He was nearly betrothed to Lady Lankouwe
n, but she had said she would marry him if he was willing. Lady Lankouwen was the best thing for him—sedate, wealthy, and in need of a protector. He would be helping her, and with her money and her estate, which was as grand as the castle where he had been born, she would be helping him show his brother that even though Gerek was the younger son, he was just as worthy.

  But what would happen to Rapunzel? If her mother was able to force her to take a sleeping potion and seize her, bearing her away against her will, what else might she do to her? The woman was obviously mad.

  He stood and put away the food and interrupted Donner’s grazing. They would search until nightfall, sleep in the woods, then search some more tomorrow. For as long as it took.

  Rapunzel’s head felt weighed down. She opened her eyes, but everything was moving and she couldn’t focus. A dry, herbal taste clung to her tongue, and her throat burned. The smell of animal dung assaulted her nose, and she was lying on something that was moving and rocking. By the gentle breeze, she knew she was outdoors. When she opened her eyes again she could see, blurred above her, blue sky and white clouds.

  Gradually she started to remember the last few days, how Lord Claybrook’s men had captured Hagenheim Castle, and all that had followed. Then she suddenly remembered her mother admitting that she had stolen Rapunzel away from her rightful parents. Her mind quickly jumped to Sir Gerek’s muscular arms holding her tight against his chest after helping her up off the floor.

  To think, what a grouch he used to be. She had disliked him and thought him arrogant and unkind. Then Mother—Gothel—had grabbed her and put something down her throat and forced her to swallow it. She had indeed made good on her threat to poison Rapunzel and drag her away from Sir Gerek and Hagenheim.

  Her body seemed too heavy and limp to move. Was she paralyzed? Had Gothel given her something that would keep her from being able to walk again? But no, she moved them slightly, not wanting to draw Gothel’s attention. She had been given a powerful sleeping potion, so powerful her body was still having trouble waking up.

  She had to think of a plan. Gothel undoubtedly intended to take Rapunzel away from Hagenheim forever. Could Gothel truly make her a prisoner?

  Even knowing of Gothel’s cruelty, it was still difficult to stop thinking of her as her mother, this woman who had raised her. She had suspected she was mad, had worried that she was becoming more and more irrational, but she never imagined she was wicked enough to steal someone else’s child.

  Why had she stolen a child?

  She had been all alone after the man she loved had left her pregnant, then her baby had been born too early and died. She was so suspicious and bitter toward people. She must have thought the only thing for her to do was to steal a child for herself, a child to replace the one she had lost, a child who would not question her suspicion and bitterness.

  Rapunzel not only had been wrong about Sir Gerek, but she had been even more wrong about Gothel.

  O Lord God, I don’t ever want to be like her. She may have raised me, but make me like someone else, like Sir Gerek or Lady Rose or Frau Adelheit, but not like this woman.

  Her body still felt weak and unwieldy. She only wished she could have some water. But first she had to think of a plan to escape.

  It was starting to get dark, and waves of sleepiness were washing over her again. Could she even hope to escape when she was barely able to stay awake, barely able to move?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Gerek awoke to the old familiar anger, the overpowering kind that had plagued him off and on since he was a boy. He had not felt it in a long time. It had inexplicably disappeared when he was traveling with Valten for two years over the Continent, entering jousting tournaments and fighting the best knights in the world. He had thought he had learned to channel the anger, to control it, and to use it to defeat his opponents without any real malice toward them. So why was it back now, that out-of-control feeling? Was it a reminder that he was his father’s son after all? If someone was in front of him right now, would he take his anger out on them? Would he strike Rapunzel’s mother if he found her now, whether it was necessary or not? Was he capable of doing what his father had done?

  No. Whatever he felt for Rapunzel, he could never imagine striking her or even the woman who had harmed her, unless it was absolutely necessary. The thought of striking a woman made him physically sick. It was against everything he had pledged to be as a knight. All of Duke Wilhelm’s knights had to swear an oath to protect and defend women, and Gerek had embraced that oath—as a defiant act against his father, but also because he saw it as his Christian duty. Jesus had given his life for others, and a knight must do the same, and nothing was nobler than saving a young woman. A young woman like his mother.

  But this was about more than being chivalrous and noble. This was about Rapunzel. An overwhelming desire rose inside him to save her. If anything happened to her . . . Pain tore through him, making him gasp at the sharp suddenness of it, as if the pain of his mother’s death were fresh and new instead of nearly twenty years old.

  He got back on his horse and started searching again for Rapunzel’s trail. He traveled on the dusty, rutted road for a while, questioning every person he saw, but no one had seen them. So he went back the way he had come and tried a different direction, going south instead of east from the point where he had lost their trail.

  He felt a renewed sense of hope. Perhaps this was the way they had gone. It made sense because they had come to Hagenheim from the south. Maybe Rapunzel’s mother was taking her back to the last place they had lived.

  He made his way to the south road and rode hard, stopping to question people he encountered along the way. No one had seen them. But by now, they had a whole day’s head start.

  He would eventually find them if they had come this way. He simply had to keep going, keep looking, and keep asking.

  Rapunzel awoke to darkness and a small fire not far away. Her throat was burning worse than ever and she was desperate for water.

  She tried to sit up and realized she was still lying on the cart, which was loaded with bundles all around her. She managed to roll to her left side, but couldn’t seem to move her left arm. When she tugged at it, metal clanked against metal. Something was holding her fast.

  Her wrist was tied with a piece of rope to the side of the cart, and their metal cooking utensils were tied to the rope.

  Still, she managed to sit up and look around.

  Mother was walking cautiously toward her with a cup in her hand.

  Without speaking, Rapunzel reached for the cup. She was so thirsty that she didn’t pause until she had drunk it all.

  Some bits of something solid slid down her throat. Her stomach sank and her head pounded with an awful foreboding.

  “What was in that water? What did you just give me?” The breath went out of her as fear gripped her. “Do you feel the need to poison me and tie me up? To treat me like an animal? You must hate me.”

  Mother’s face was hard and dark, just as it had been when she’d seen Sir Gerek bringing her home on his horse. “I could not let you tell anyone who you were, could I?”

  Pain streaked through Rapunzel, but she pretended to feel nothing. “I have to visit the privy.” Although she knew there was no privy. They were in the middle of the woods.

  Mother untied the rope, and Rapunzel walked away to find a thick bush to squat behind. But when she finished and stood up, she became so dizzy, she stumbled several steps, then fell on her side on the ground. Her eyelids were too heavy to open.

  Traveling the south road for two days had yielded nothing. No one had seen the two women or their donkey and cart. Gerek asked at every village, asked every traveler. What could he do now except go back and try another direction?

  But perhaps someone had found them and brought them back to Hagenheim. After all, the other men had gone in all directions. It was not too far-fetched to believe that they may have found them.

  With this heartening thought,
Gerek turned back toward Hagenheim.

  How many days had passed since Gothel had taken Rapunzel away from Hagenheim? She spent them either asleep or in a daze. Did Sir Gerek realize what had happened to her? Was he worried about her? He would surely search for her when he found out she was missing, even if he didn’t know what had happened to her. Surely he would guess what Gothel had done to her.

  It was nearly nighttime. Rapunzel slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a book, The Poem of the Cid, and she quietly tore off a piece of a page. Then she dropped it over the side of the cart.

  Would Sir Gerek be angry with her for ruining his book? She hoped, if he was looking for her, he would say it was worth it if it helped him find her. And if he never found her . . . it wouldn’t matter.

  Had Frau Adelheit told Lady Rose that she suspected Rapunzel was Elsebeth? No, she wouldn’t want to upset Lady Rose. She wouldn’t want her to be devastated at losing her again, for Rapunzel was truly lost unless she could escape from Gothel and make her way back to Hagenheim. And that was exactly what she had to do. She had to stay alive so she could get back to Hagenheim, back to her true mother.

  Every night Gothel gave her a cup of water, and every night Rapunzel drank it because she was so thirsty and there was no other way to get water. Gothel kept her tied to the side of the cart, and she’d had no opportunity to untie it, being so weak from whatever was in her water, and Gothel was never far from the cart for long. She had even stopped untying the rope to let Rapunzel relieve herself. She simply did her relieving beside the cart.

  Rapunzel wasn’t sure how many days she’d been away from Hagenheim. She kept ripping off pieces of paper as quietly as possible and dropping them onto the ground, praying Gothel would not notice.

  A few hours later, Gothel gave her a bit of food. She had eaten very little for the last however many days they had been traveling, and she was ravenous. She ate the morsel of bread and cheese, wishing she could throw it in Gothel’s face, but knowing she needed the strength to escape. She could barely swallow it, not having drunk anything all day. Finally came the cup of water. She took a sip. Gothel was looking away, staring at the fire, so Rapunzel poured the water out onto a cloth bag beside her, swirling it in the cup to make sure she got rid of the bits of herbs or crushed root or whatever it was in the bottom of the cup.